The muscular congestion

Muscular congestion is a phenomenon making muscles looking bigger - "pumped" - harder after a training.
It seems to be a good indicator for one's health state and nutrition, plus it enhances muscular growth.
When a congestion doesn't come after a training, it could be the sign of a bad training, inadequate intakes, or even worse, an overtraining.

This phenomenon is created by the blood plasma, being trapped into the muscles:
During the muscular contractions, the contractiles elements (myocytes) create a strength inside the muscle : while the muscle is shrinking due to it's contraction, it's diameter increases ; during such event, the pression inside the muscles blocks the circulation of the blood, making the pressure inside the capillaries increase, forcing some of the plasma to leave the blod vessels.
That plasma gets stored into the fibers interstices.

The congestion would remain there when the blood "over-pressure " is maintained - and until the plasma didn't get evacuated.
Now you now what the "pump" is, let's see if it's useful

Congestion and muscle gain
It seems that congestion is as useful as the burn (I'll write another post, but basically, it's a pain caused by the lactic acid) for the muscular growth (though it's a small contribution)
The most interesting thing here in fact is that load of blod into the muscles, first creates a pressure into the muscles, but also brings much more nutrients to the muscles, meaning if you get it, a better growth AND recovery :-)

In the opposite, when you train without congestion (I'm thinking about heavy but short reps) the muscle won't increase in size, while the strength will

Congestion, soreness and recovery
One another usage of congestion is it's ability to enhance recovery between two sessions. A training with light weights, but long series, mainly based on congestion will
- Brings oxygen and nutrients to muscles and articular bones
- Enhance the evacuation of the anabolic wastes (article to come)
- Enhance the bloodstream

... making the recovery a better one. That may help you to quickly go over muscles soreness

Congestion, health and nutrition
The congestion is also interesting to have an idea of how good your body is performing, and how healthy you are.
During a strength training , if you don't feel any congestion feeling, it could mainly mean three things :

- Overtraining
- Lack of nutrients (carbs in fact)
- Bad training (go home and come back tomorrow)

Overtraining
Small aparte, since that point is often forgotten.
Overtraining suck, it basically means you force too much against the body response - and it's ability to recover. The body is *tired* and is unable to recover from one session to the next. Progress will be non-existent, injuries will likely to occur AND the hormonal system goes crazy (impairment) - especially the libido


Congestion and training plans
That might now help you to define your goals : gaining volume, or being strong. I'm not saying you can't be both, but we all have our rhythm, and we usually stick to it. The "slow type" will over months increase his strength - the "speed type" will rather gain quite volume. For the same period on time ; the first one will be able to push heavier.